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Tag Archive for Councilman Sal Tinajero

With the recent uproar over Santa Ana Mayor Pro Tem Claudia Alvarez’s inflammatory anti-Semitic remarks I thought it would be useful to point out some things to the members of the City Council sitting on the sidelines with their fingers held high in the air in a futile effort to assess wind direction in a tornado. You…

Adam Elmahrek over at the Voice of OC has a detailed follow-up to the story I mentioned last week regarding plans to expand the role of the city consulting firm Management Partners. Why am I getting the urge to say “I told you so?”

Back a few weeks ago, when Santa Ana Assistant City Manager Cindy Nelson announced her retirement, Councilman Sal Tinajero spoke to the Voice of OC about the transition. He described the departures of Nelson and City Attorney James Fletcher as part of the ushering in of a new era in Santa Ana city government, one…

Tuesday, Councilman Sal Tinajero is gifting Pedroza and Mill with a bonus by appointing Mill to the city’s powerful Planning Commission. The appointment of Mill will send a clear message to any business wanting planning approval in Santa Ana that they can get a leg up by spending $100 to become a member of Pedroza’s business association.

I think I’ve figured out the problem that the Santa Ana City Council has with following simple rules of transparent and ethical government, They don’t really give a crap what the rules are. They have figured out that they can ignore those rules, as well as city laws regarding ethics, campaign contributions and voting, and get away with it. I have written extensively about this problem over the past year and coverage of Monday’s Santa Ana City Council meeting by Adam Elmahrek of the Voice of OC made this truth even more apparent.

As most of you know, we have been hammering the city council and executive staff of the City of Santa Ana pretty hard on the issue of transparency over the past few months. We have found conflicts of interest that have required the return of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions and violations of sunshine and open meetings laws. The result of our investigations has lead me to a simple conclusion. The City of Santa Ana operates with about as much transparency as a brick wall.

One of the simplest things for a candidate or elected official to do is to file their campaign finance reports on time. The first pre-election statements were due to the Santa Ana City Clerk by 5 pm on Tuesday. As of 5 pm Wednesday, Tinajero had not filed his required report and according to the City Clerk, Tinajero had told her it would be filed some time today.